Beverley Cleary is 103! Wow!

[conuly]

It's a pity she's no longer writing, but it's still amazing that she's still around! I read her memoir, Girl From Yamhill, once. Her earliest memory, as recounted there, is of the end of the First World War. (Not that she understood what was going on, but still.) Can you believe it!?

And an interesting anecdote, appropriate nowadays in this age of vaccine refusal and "chickenpox parties" - as a young child she was sent upstairs to play with a neighbor because that neighbor had chickenpox and was quarantined and lonely, but young Beverley had already had chickenpox. Unfortunately, it turned out the neighbor had smallpox instead, and so she got sick. But survived! Despite what anti-vaxxers tell us about the past, and about the relative seriousness of childhood illness, there was no talk of sending children to this neighbor's house specifically to expose them to disease that they might otherwise have avoided. The poor child was quarantined even when they thought it was "only" chickenpox.

Comments

[breathedout]

I almost CANNOT believe it!! Incredible. Good for her, holy shit.

[conuly]

Yup.

[archersangel]

i didn't know she was still around. o i found out not long ago thatlivia de havilland is going to be 103 july 1.

[dine]

I heard of her birthday on the news tonight - she was local (though not living in the area now) and her books set in Portland using Portland place names, like Klickitat St., so people here generally have a special fondness for her.

[conuly]

I didn't know it was a real place until I was an adult.

[muninnhuginn]

How lovely!

I don't think we got a whole lot of her books in the UK when I was growing up, but I very clearly remember "Fifteen". I was about twelve or thirteen when I read it, at a time when there were so few books for teens and I loved it. I think I read it twice through before rather reluctantly exchanging it for something else. My English teacher was very disapproving: he knew that I knew that when he was extolling the virtues of "Bleak House" the recommendation was aimed at me. Fact was what I needed to read at the time was Beverley Cleary.

[conuly]

Yes, Bleak House, there's an uplifting, age appropriate book for a young teen.

[notasupervillain]

I thought chickenpox parties made sense? Like, before there was a vaccine, it was much safer to get it as a child than as an adult, so you'd want to expose your children. And then the vaccine came along and rendered that moot.

ETA: I may have entirely made that up. Memory is a funny thing.

[malkingrey]

Chickenpox was no fun, and I'm glad there's a vaccine for it now. My kids all came along just too early for that; the eldest brought it home from first grade in 1989, and all three of the others got it from her, including the twins who were only a few months old at the time. I don't think I got out of the house for a solid month.

[redbird]

I recall the same: our parents thought it was better for us (children) to have chicken pox when we were relatively young, because almost everyone got it at some point and it's more dangerous to older people than to children. ("Relatively young" meaning a few years old, not a few months.)

[randomdreams]

My belief based on what my parents and grandparents told me is that yes some people did purposefully expose their kids to chickenpox, because it was generally understood to be less dangerous the earlier you caught it, but nobody did this with measles, mumps, or smallpox, because the serious health risks of all of them were clearly understood by the people who saw friends and family die of them.

[notasupervillain]

Yes - there was no benefit to getting smallpox etc. young since that one was extremely dangerous at any age.

[mindstalk]

Plus if almost everyone got it, I can see a parent wanting to get it over with at a time of their choosing.

[notasupervillain]

And it might be easier for parents of children who are friends to know they're all safe?

[chelseagirl]

A friend of my mother's sent her children (whom I did not know) to play with me when I had chicken pox. Even at that age, 3 or 4, I remember specifically feeling not up for entertaining in my condition.

[conuly]

Poor baby you!

[silveradept]

103 and at least one endowed chair at a university named after her. Not bad at all.

(And yes, I got the pox because the siblings did. Would that there was the vaccination then.)

[conuly]

https://xkcd.com/1950/

[magnetic_pole]

I had no idea she was still with us! She made such an impact on me as a child.

Re: childhood illnesses: interesting! I was quarantined when I got chicken pox as a child (born 1972), although the thinking seemed to be to that all siblings would and should get it at the same time, so my brother continued to play with me and got it himself. M.

[conuly]

Siblings, sure. They're going to get it, so why should Mom make extra work for herself?

[rhoda_rants]

Holy crap, good for her! I knew she was still around, but had no idea of her age. That is awesome!

I definitely had to stay home and not touch anyone when I had the chickenpox as a kid. (This was late 80s/early 90s, fyi.) It was assumed that you'd get it eventually as a childhood ailment that sucked but wouldn't last forever, but you still got pulled out of school so you wouldn't infect anyone else. I still have a couple scars from scratching them like you're not supposed to.

[conuly]

I never got it and really must get the vaccine one of these years.

[rhoda_rants]

Oh, you totally should. I don't think the vaccine was around when I was a kid. Actually, I should see if I can still get it now, because chickenpox is crappy but tolerable, but shingles--which is an evolved version of the same virus you can't get unless you've been exposed to the earlier one--is decidedly NOT.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Wow, very cool! I read 'Henry Huggins', 'Ellen Tebbits', 'Otis Spofford', 'Beezus and Ramona' and 'The Mouse and the Motorcycle' around third to fifth grade, roughly 1966-68. I hope Ms. Cleary's remaining years are happy ones.

[greghousesgf]

I've loved the Beverly Cleary books since I was a kid! I've read a whole bunch of them.

[conuly]

She has a real knack for realistic children.

[asakiyume]

How unusual that the neighbor had smallpox! Even back in the early twentieth century, there was a vaccine for that--heck, there was a vaccine for that all through the 19th century. But I guess there were still people here and there who weren't vaccinated--just like there are now with things like measles. I'm thinking of the movie sovay wrote about, about a smallpox outbreak in New York City in 1949. So yeah, things happen. But it must have been quite a rare thing!